"Divided over gay marriage" by Roy Rivenburg Paula Ettelbrick, a law professor who runs the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission, recommends legalizing a wide variety of marriage alternatives, including polyamory, or group wedlock. An example could include a lesbian couple living with a sperm-donor father, or a network of men and women who share sexual relations.

One aim, she says, is to break the stranglehold that married heterosexual couples have on health benefits and legal rights. The other goal is to "push the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process transform the very fabric of society." ... [snip]

The other goal is to "push the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process transform the very fabric of society."

That didn't take long, now did it. After polygamy, will come man-boy marriage. After man-boy, will come incestuous marriage. After incestuous, will come bestiality marriage. After bestiality, will come necrophilia marriage.

From a website: "Ms. Ettelbrick has been widely published, in law journals, books and other publications, and has spoken nationally and internationally on GLBT issues. She has taught law for 11 years and currently teaches Sexuality and the Law at New York University Law School, the University of Michigan Law School and Barnard College."

"Next." "Good morning. We want to apply for a marriage license." "Names?" "Tim and Jim Jones." "Jones? Are you related? I see a resemblance." "Yes, we're brothers." "Brothers? You can't get married." "Why not? Aren't you giving marriage licenses to same gender couples?"

"Yes, thousands. But we haven't had any siblings. That's incest!" "Incest? No, we are not gay." "Not gay? Then why do you want to get married?" "For the financial benefits, of course. And we do love each other. Besides, we don't have any other prospects." "But we're issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who've been denied equal protection under the law. If you are not gay, you can get married to a woman." "Wait a minute. A gay man has the same opportunity to marry a woman as I have. But just because I'm straight doesn't mean I want to marry a woman. I want to marry Jim." "And I want to marry Tim, Are you going to discriminate against us just because we are not gay?" "All right, all right. I'll give you your license.

Next. "Hi. We are here to get married." "Names?" "John Smith, Jane James, Robert Green, and June Johnson." "Who wants to marry whom?" "We all want to marry each other." "But there are four of you!" "That's right. You see, we're all bisexual. I love Jane and Robert, Jane loves me and June, June loves Robert and Jane, and Robert loves June and me. All of us getting married together is the only way that we can express our sexual preferences in a marital relationship." "But we've only been granting licenses to gay and lesbian couples." "So you're discriminating against bisexuals!" "No, it's just that, well, the traditional idea of marriage is that it's just for couples." "Since when are you standing on tradition?" "Well, I mean, you have to draw the line somewhere." "Who says? You didn't draw the line at tradition marriage. There's no logical reason to limit marriage to couples only. The more the better. Besides, we demand our rights! The mayor says the constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. Give us a marriage license!" "All right, all right, here's your license."

"Next." "Hello, I'd like a marriage license." "In what names?" "David Deets." "And the other man?" "That's all. I want to marry myself." "Marry yourself? What do you mean?" "Well, my psychiatrist says I have a dual personality, so I want to marry the two together. Maybe I can file a joint income-tax return. I have constitutional rights!!"

From what I remember of anthropology, every society that has lasted long enough to write about has recognized the concept of a marriage as being between one man and one or more women; while many societies limit the number of women to one, that limitation is not nearly so universal as the requirements that there be exactly one man and at least one woman.

Indeed, I would suggest that the question of whether polygyny should be allowed is in many ways not so much a moral issue as a practical one. Since multiple men cannot share a woman (if they did, they wouldn't know whose children were whose) then unless there are many more women than men, allowing some men to have multiple wives would produce a shortage of women.

To be sure, women are well within their rights to insist that they be their husband's sole love interest, and I suspect the vast majority of women would so insist. But polygyny is far less morally dubious than the 'same sex marriage' notions that have been being pused lately.

27
posted on 03/13/2004 7:55:16 PM PST
by supercat
(Why is it that the more "gun safety" laws are passed, the less safe my guns seem?)

"Saying that children need mothers and fathers might come to be regarded as a form of hate speech, he adds."

You start out with gay marriage and pretty soon saying out loud what was common sense for the last 10,000 years is now a form of hate speech. I know where this leads. All speech other than politically correct speed makes you subject to criminal prosecution. During the 1921 famine in Russia it was a capital offense to use the word famine to refer to the famine. That's why hate speech laws (and gay marriage) are bad ideas.

The other goal is to "push the parameters of sex, sexuality and family, and in the process transform the very fabric of society."

This is they're true goal. They live to experience the joy of sex. Any kind of sex.

Lower the voting age to 14 by:John Vasconcellos

Greg Shields, spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America said, "A person who engages in homosexual conduct is not a role model for those (family) values." California Sen. John Vasconcellos, a gay-rights advocate, distributed a memo concerning Millan's view to every state legislator. (Christian Times.) The good Senator also advocates state funding to research the medical uses of marijuana and ways to distribute it. When this is all passed the homosexual leader with aids can also legally smoke their "medicine" before the boy scouts without fear of reprimand.

I hope someone shows up just like in the Woody Allen flick; the skit with Gene Wilder and the Greek guy that was in love with his ewe; then Wilder fell in love with it. NAMSLA(North American Man Sheep Love Association) will rock when it is chartered. Motto: Bully For Woolly Love. I hope they keep it coming.

Deep within the article: [Bronson says he cringes when he sees coverage of gay marriage. "It's always the same story. There's a photo of a loving, caring, monogamous lesbian couple, raising adopted orphans. 'We only want the rights given to everyone else,' they plead," he recently wrote. "In our Oprah-fied culture, blubbery emotion must be fed. So the definition of marriage that has outlasted the Great Pyramids and crosses more cultural, geographic, religious and ethnic boundaries than the Great Wall of China is crumbling under the slow drip of 'I want.' "]

I'd like to thank him for saying exactly what I've been thinking about the media and many of my "conservative" friends who support gay marriage.

Wednesday, April 23, 2003 By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Politics Editor

Dismissing calls for him to relinquish his leadership post, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum yesterday defended his published remarks on the legal status of homosexual acts, calling it "a legitimate public policy discussion."

In an interview with Fox News last night, and in an earlier statement released by his office, the Pennsylvania Republican insisted, in the face of sharp criticism from leading Democrats and gay and lesbian groups, that his comments in an Associated Press interview had been misconstrued.

"I do not need to give an apology based on what I said or what I'm saying now," he said.

He said his remarks were a criticism of the reasoning behind a legal challenge to a Texas anti-sodomy law rather than an effort to equate homosexuality with acts such as incest and adultery.

Santorum, who holds the number three position in the Senate Republican caucus, sought to allay a controversy that began with an Associated Press story that included the quote:

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery, you have the right to anything."

In his statement, Santorum said, "My discussion with the Associated Press was about the Supreme Court privacy case [Texas vs. Lawrence], the constitutional right to privacy in general, and in context of the impact on the family. I am a firm believer that all are equal under the Constitution. My comments should not be construed in any way as a statement on individual lifestyles."

Many critics construed it just that way.

"Sen. Santorum's comments were unfortunate, and I disagree with him wholeheartedly," said Sen. Tom Daschle, the Democratic leader, in a statement released by his office.

"The senator is defending the sanctity of marriage. He is defending family values as defined by the Bible in which the most intimate relationships are to be between men and women and only after they have entered into the contract of marriage. There was no hate or call to violence against homosexuals expressed by Sen. Santorum," Weyrich said.

Ken O'Connor, president of the Family Research Council, called the criticism of Santorum an attempt "to intimidate defenders of marriage and silence critics of the homosexual political agenda."

At the regular White House briefing yesterday, Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary, refused to be drawn into a conversation on the subject.

Sen. John Kerry, a Democratic presidential candidate from Massachusetts, criticized Santorum's remarks and the White House reticence on them.

John Brabender, the media strategist who helped soften Santorum's image with innovative commercials during his 2000 re-election victory, dismissed both the substance and the likely effect of such remarks.

"Clearly you have some Democrats piling on here and trying to make it something that it is not," he said.

Brabender rejected the Trent Lott analogy to Santorum's situation, maintaining that the controversy would be short-lived.

"What we have found is that, when properly explained, this makes sense to people," he said. "I don't see anything here."

A Democratic consultant, Neil Oxman of The Campaign Group, the Philadelphia firm that handled Gov. Ed Rendell's advertising last year, said it was too early to tell if the controversy would linger.

"How big it will be depends on how loud people shout," said Oxman. "If mainstream Democrats start shouting, it could take on a life of its own."

Oxman said the eventual political volume is likely to be a product of some mixture of genuine grass-roots concern and partisan orchestration.

As Santorum and his allies began to question the fairness and interpretation of the original Associated Press story, the news agency released fuller excerpts from the interview, which was taped on April 7.

In it, Santorum, who is a lawyer, questioned the line of legal reasoning first enunciated in a Supreme Court opinion that struck down state laws regulating contraception.

Santorum also suggested that the tendency to accept homosexual acts, or other sexuality outside of marriage, posed a threat to the institution of the family, and, by extension, to society in general.

The court's opinion in the contraception case, Griswold vs. Connecticut, found a right to privacy unstated but implicit in the Constitution.

"It all comes from, I would argue, the right to privacy that doesn't exist, in my opinion, in the United States Constitution," Santorum said.

At another point in the interview, Santorum observed, "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case might be."

Echoing a variety of conservative thinkers and legal scholars, Santorum said that the Supreme Court should not interfere with state regulation of such behavior, the issue in the Texas sodomy law case that prompted his initial remarks.

"If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. ... I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in."

Santorum, a Roman Catholic, made a distinction between homosexual people and homosexual acts.

"I have nothing, absolutely nothing, against anyone who's homosexual," he said. "If that's their orientation, then I accept that, and I have no problem with someone who has other orientations. The question is, do you act upon those orientations? So, it's not the person, it's the person's actions."

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5.)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut25:5-10)--

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